The navy caught Guzman in an operation at about 4:30 a.m. (6:30 a.m. ET) in the coastal city of Los Mochis in Sinaloa state, a senior law enforcement official in Mexico told CNN. Several people aligned with Guzman died in the raid.

John “Jack” Riley, the DEA’s acting deputy administrator, has been named ticklethewire.com’s Fed of the Year for 2015.

Riley, a native of Chicago with more than 25 years of drug law enforcement experience, was appointed the acting second-in-command of the DEA in April as the top administrator, Michele Leonhart, was stepping down.

Riley has stepped into a top leadership role — no easy task — and deserves credit for working on getting the agency back on track, while providing guidance to the new interim director, an outsider from the FBI, Chuck Rosenberg. Along the way, he’s made some tough decisions, which hasn’t pleased everyone inside the DEA.

The grandson of a Chicago cop, he headed up the Chicago and El Paso field offices, and has spent years investigating the Mexican cartels and the trafficking of heroin and cocaine across the southern border.

The man is old school. He’s got it out for Mexican drug lord Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, chief of the murderous Sinaloa Cartel, who escaped from a Mexican prison earlier this year. Riley was once the target of an assassination plot by El Chapo’s operatives.

“Just so you know, I was going to retire — until this dick escaped,” Riley told Yahoo! News in September, adding: “I’m in it for the long haul.”

Previous recipients of the ticklethewire.com Fed of the Year award include: Former Chicago U.S. Attorney Patrick Fitzgerald (2008): Warren Bamford, who headed the Boston FBI (2009), Joseph Evans, regional director for the DEA’s North and Central Americas Region in Mexico City (2010); Thomas Brandon, deputy Director of ATF (2011); John G. Perren, who was assistant director of WMD (Weapons of Mass Destruction) Directorate (2012); David Bowdich, special agent in charge of counterterrorism in Los Angeles (2013); and Attorney General Loretta Lynch, who was U.S. Attorney in Brooklyn at the time (2014).

A controversial report has surfaced in wake of the July 11 prison escape of drug kingpin Joaquín “El Chapo” Guzmán.

The website, Intercept reports that Presco, an investigative Mexican magazine, is saying that initial reports about the February 2014 arrest of Guzmanin weren’t true. The media reported back then that the arrest was made by elite Mexican marines, with U.S. federal agencies playing a crucial intelligence support role.

But the magazine, citing U.S. government sources, claims that account is false.

Proceso reports that the agents who arrested Guzmán weren’t Mexicans, but rather Americans –agents from the DEA and and U.S. Marshals Service who were dressed as Mexican marines, working alongside one or more unidentified U.S. intelligence agencies.

Government officials from Mexico and the U.S. have yet to dispute the accuracy of the story, Intercept reports.

Known as Mexico’s most powerful drug lord, Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman has eluded U.S. authorities since he famously broke out of a Mexican jail in a laundry cart in 2001 and rebuilt the notorious Sinaloa cartel.

But authorities may find clues about his whereabouts after border patrol officers detained the kingpin’s daughter Friday trying to cross the border on foot from Tijuana, Mexico, with a counterfeit Visa and false name, Reuters reported Tuesday.

Citing court records, Reuters said Alejandrina Gisselle Guzman-Salazar was trying to enter the U.S. to give birth to her child in Los Angeles.

According to Mexico’s attorney general’s office, Guzman-Salazar, a Mexican citizen, is not wanted for any crimes.

Her father, Guzman, however, is believed to be worth $1 billion and is running the most potent drug cartel in Mexico.

As if we needed more evidence of the threat the Mexican cartels pose to the United States, here’s the latest. Don’t be surprised to see more DEA agents in Mexico and possibly other U.S. personnel from other agencies– and even the military.

By Josh Meyer
Los Angeles TimesSELLS, Ariz. — The reputed head of Mexico’s Sinaloa drug cartel is threatening a more aggressive stance against competitors and law enforcement north of the border, instructing associates to use deadly force, if needed, to protect increasingly contested trafficking operations, authorities said.

Such a move by Joaquin “El Chapo” Guzman, Mexico’s most-wanted fugitive, would mark a turn from the cartel’s previous position of largely avoiding violent confrontations in the U.S. — either with law enforcement officers or rival traffickers.

Police and federal agents in Arizona said they had recently received at least two law enforcement alerts focused on Guzman’s reported orders that his smugglers should “use their weapons to defend their loads at all costs.”